Sunday, March 27, 2005

Killer Aunt

Since I missed the childbearing boat with the untimely but so-glad-I-had-sense-enough-to-do-it divorce, I waffle about my feelings of never having had children. I’m sure I would just embarrass them all the time if I had any. You should see me when I have the niece and nephew with me and someone appears to be compromising their comfort zone, even slightly. My fangs and claws come out like it’s a full moon. One night I took the kiddos to the movie and these two teenaged boys sat next to us and continued talking with their "outside voices" five minutes into the movie. I knew Emily and Reece were not going to be able to hear the movie and I was so upset I looked at these boys and yelled, "HUSH!" They did. Not a peep out of them after that. Emily looked at me with a horrified expression on her pretty face. I think she thought I’d gone a little too far.

In one of Emily’s comments to one of my posts, she mentioned the time I let some cranky old man have it because he called her a boy. (She's too young to remember this except that I've told her about it and it's one of her favorite stories.) Oh, I would have strangled the tobacco-chewing, overall-wearing hayseed if my mom hadn’t been with me. Emily was less than a year old and she was in her stroller and she was dressed all in pink with a freaking pink bow in her hair. Yes, gender was obvious. As I stood my ground and told the guy that she was a girl and it was obvious that she was a girl, my mom was cringing and wishing she were dead. Well, I don’t care. You don’t mess with Emily. You don’t mess with Reece, either, and sometimes Emily messes with Reece and I have to protect him from her. Now that’s a difficult situation. (Emily remember this when you’re giving your little brother a hard time. And have Reece read this, too, and maybe you both will start being nicer to one another.) When they’re fighting is when I’m SOOOO glad I can take them back to my brother and sister-in-law.

They do, however, have their moments of pure love and affection for each other. One afternoon we were standing in line to get our $40 bucket of popcorn before a movie and Reece was really being exceptionally cute. Yes, cuter than he always is. Even Emily thought so, and she looked at him with such love and adoration. I’ll never forget her face. She took a step toward him and raised an arm to put around him and he blocked it and stepped back. She looked hurt and said, "Gosh, Reece, I just wanted to hug you." Reece replied, "Oh, I thought you were going to hit me."

I love you, Emmie and Reecie Boy, and wish I’d kept a diary of your antics because now I can’t remember half of them.

You are a rockin aunt, Miss V. You know, I sort of envy you because you're an aunt. I'm even closer to my aunt than I am my own mom. I think us girls just wind up too much like our moms so it's easier for us to be friends with our aunts. They get us, because they're related, but they're different enough to not drive us crazy.

Plus they yell at those annoying talkers in the movies and let us east pizza for Easter dinner and stuff. =)